


when the road looks rough ahead (and you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed)

by bloodredcherries



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 04:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17891639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries
Summary: There was that word again.Friend.As if Fred and FP thought Alice was stupid enough to believe that either of them was her friend.





	when the road looks rough ahead (and you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed)

“Whatever it is you have to say to me, I am not interested in hearing it,” Alice informed Fred from behind her front door, and Fred managed to resist the sigh that threatened to bloom from his lips, wondering just how difficult Alice was going to make completing this simple task. “I don’t care if you’ve found God, stolen the cookies from a Girl Scout to resell at a profit, have expanded your construction business into shoveling snow and cleaning gutters, the answer is no.” 

 

“I just want to talk to you,” Fred insisted. “Isn’t that what neighbors do? They talk to each other?” Not that Fred had been very neighborly towards Alice of late. It had just been difficult trying to balance work, trying to get Archie out of jail, and trying to process the dumpster fire disaster that his life had become over the course of a year, that his social life had been what had taken a hit. “I heard that Polly left again.” 

 

The door opened somewhat, revealing Alice’s face, and Fred took that as an encouraging sign, as he appraised his next door neighbor with cautious eyes, trying to ensure that she was in one piece without making his actions blatantly obvious. “Shut up, Fred,” she hissed. “I’m not stupid, I know why you’re here. Can you just be quiet?” 

 

“I’m here because I care about you,” he insisted. “I understand that you’ve had a rough time of things lately, and I wanted to stop in and see if I could cheer you up.” 

 

The door opened fully, and she pulled him into the house, her non-amusement written on her face. “I’ve already told FP that I am not going,” she said. “How dare he invite me to this display of audacity? He’s not even  _ turning _ fifty! I refuse to take part in this sham of a celebration. Why should I? He’s not my friend.” 

 

“You don’t mean that, Alice,” Fred said, as he tried to ignore the stinging of her nails as they dug into his arm, reminding himself that he was doing this for FP, and not because he had secretly developed a desire to be a masochist. “Is it because of Gladys?” 

 

“He took everything away from me,” she said, her tone flat. “He took my--the farm, Polly, my  _ grandchildren _ and then he just...I thought we  _ had _ something, and it was all bullshit. It’s always bullshit. And I’m just so  _ stupid _ that I fall for it every damn time.” 

 

“You could have died,” he pointed out. “FP had every right to investigate the farm for your  _ near drowning _ of a Baptism, and you know that. He didn’t make Polly leave, Alice. She did that on her own. As for Gladys…” Fred trailed off. “Jughead has always wanted his family to be together again,” he pointed out. “Can you really blame FP for wanting to try?” 

 

“Of course I can’t blame him,” she muttered. “Anyone would be better than me.” 

 

“You know that’s not true,” Fred insisted, as she opened the kitchen cabinet and pulled out two wine glasses, and poured them a glass each of wine, barely resisting the temptation to point out that it wasn’t even noon. “You tried with Hal,” he pointed out.

 

“Look where that got me,” she snapped. “A target on my back and a family that hates me, a daughter I’ll never see again and a daughter who had to sue me to get her inheritance back. Face it, Fred. I’m a horrible person.” She took a slug of the wine. “I can’t go there and see them hanging all over each other while I sit alone at a table by myself, like the loser I am. I don’t even know why FP bothered to invite me. I certainly don’t deserve it.” 

 

“Alice…” 

 

“What?” 

 

“Listen to yourself,” he said. “You sound like Archie.” 

 

“What?” 

 

“You heard me,” Fred said. “I get that you don’t like Gladys,” he added. “But couldn’t you consider going? For FP’s sake?”

 

She shook her head. “You don’t get it,” she whispered. 

 

“What about Betty?” 

 

“What  _ about _ Betty?” Alice echoed. The wine sloshed dangerously in her glass. “What does Elizabeth have to do with  _ any _ of this?”

 

“I can’t imagine that it would be easy on her,” he said. “Having to explain why her own mother won’t meet her boyfriend’s mom. Especially when your reputation precedes you.” 

 

“I--”

 

“Just some food for thought,” he told her. “I’ll be next door if you need me. Might I suggest that you switch to coffee? It is a bit early for a liquid lunch.” 

 

“I beg your pardon? How dare you cast insinuations upon my character?” 

 

“You’ve lived next door to me for 25 years,” he said. “I was bound to pick up a thing or two.” 

  
  


***

  
  


Alice scowled, not entirely certain why she had ended up parked in the parking lot of the Sheriff’s station, seething silently as Fred’s comparison of her to Archibald remained in the forefront of her mind. She rejected the assertion that she and that boy were in any way similar. Her decision to not attend FP’s birthday party was simply to protect herself, not out of any sort of attempt to be juvenile. 

 

Maybe ignoring FP when he’d tried calling and texting her had been...approaching juvenile, Alice supposed, but she didn’t have the energy to explain to him what was so painfully obvious to her. Whatever they’d shared, it was over. There was no point in anything different. 

 

Why would he want to be her friend when she just brought him down? Brought everyone down? It made no sense to her. 

 

Still. Fred had had a point. Not about his insulting comparison to Archibald. That she found baseless and offensive. But, rather, she supposed that her decision to avoid both FP and his wife could potentially have negative effects on Elizabeth. She had already ruined her life enough. 

 

Which brought her to where she was. 

 

She checked her makeup in the mirror and deemed it satisfactory, and she opened the car door, taking her purse with her as she exited the vehicle. 

 

She stalked inside of the barracks, glaring at anyone who dared to meet her eyes. She may have lost all of her everything, but she still had her sense of pride. 

 

She paused before she stormed into his office, and dared to knock, not caring that she normally didn’t do so. FP was different. He deserved her respect. Especially since she’d given him none of it lately. 

 

“Alice?” 

 

She pursed her lips. “Hi. I think I owe you an apology.” 

 

“You, uh, you want to come in?”

 

She shrugged. FP appeared to be alone. She had gone all that way. “I don’t want to talk to you out in the hallway,” she said. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

 

“You don’t have to,” he said. “We could go out, have a bite to eat.”

 

“No. I can’t. You have a wife.”

 

“Alice—“

 

She brushed past him and shut the door as she went, considering her presence at all in his life to be a concession enough. 

 

“I don’t understand you,” she told him. “Shouldn’t you be happy? You got what you wanted. What Jughead wanted. You can be a happy family again. What the hell do you even want to do with me?”

 

“I’ve been trying to explain to you,” he said. “You ignore my calls, you ignore my texts, I know you see those messages I sent you on Facebook, Alice. Betty says you barely leave the house, you won’t come to my party—“

 

“Why the hell would I? See you and Gladys play at happy couple?”

 

“It’s not like that, Alice,” he said. “I don’t know why she’s here, I didn’t ask her to come, but she brought my daughter. I can’t just throw Jellybean out.”

 

“I suppose you couldn’t,” she muttered, as she sat down on the edge of the nearest chair, not much interested in looking him in the eye. “What about the party?”

 

“It’s not what I want to do,” he admitted. “Don’t know why she’s insisting on it. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’m not going to force you to spend time with me. Even though you’re my friend.”

 

There was that word again. 

 

Friend.

 

As if Fred and FP thought Alice was stupid enough to believe that either of them was her friend. Fred was her neighbor that she and Harold had spent 25 years terrorizing for reasons that even Alice couldn’t fully understand, and FP? The man was the father of her child -- her dead child, granted, but her child nonetheless -- and her...well, she’d been stupid to think that they’d had something together. 

 

“You told me that it felt right,” she said, and she examined her nails, unable to look him in the eyes. Truthfully, Alice was embarrassed that she even  _ had _ feelings and emotions on the subject, let alone the fact that she wanted to express them. “Whatever we had, and I was stupid enough to believe you. What was I to you? Some cheap fuck that you could just toss aside? And then you try to tell me that we’re friends, like I’m ever going to believe that you want to be my friend.” She shook her head, and she held tightly to the straps of her purse. “Maybe I went around things the wrong way when I stopped taking your calls, and stopped talking to you,” she allowed. “I just couldn’t ruin a second marriage after I ruined my own.” She sighed.

 

“Whatever. If it means that much to you, I’ll go to your party. I’ll make nice with the woman who used to terrorize me when we were kids growing up in the trailer park, and I will be Elizabeth’s perfectly put together mother, who doesn’t have to join cults and end up  _ hospitalized  _ for two weeks because she thought that an immersion baptism would be a  _ great _ idea, and then be ordered to see a shrink because someone in this room was “concerned about my mental stability”.”

 

“You joined a cult, Alice--”   
  


“You don’t think I know that? You try being married for 25 years and suddenly your husband is arrested for being a serial killer, and you, who hasn’t been alone since you were 18, is suddenly--”

 

“The thing was, Alice, you’re weren’t alone. You had me. You had Fred. We would have helped you.” 

 

She shook her head. “You had your own problems. You  _ have _ your own problems. You’re our Sheriff! Don’t you have crime to abate? Lodges to arrest?” 

 

“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” he said. “It’s Jellybean.” 

 

“Your...ten year old?” 

 

Alice was very dubious indeed that a  _ ten year old _ was the ringleader of the debauchery and sin that had been littering both the Northside and Southside of town as of late, but, FP was the Sheriff and she supposed that stranger things had happened. 

 

“I don’t exactly think that things were on the up and up when she was in Toledo,” he said, and she maintained an impressively neutral expression, managing to resist openly rolling her eyes. “I don’t think Gladys is working at a call center.”

 

“I could have told you that,” she said. “Was that something I should have mentioned?” 

 

“Alice! Yes it was something that you should mention!” 

 

“All I knew was hearsay, based on what that social worker discovered, and given that she looked at myself and Harold and tried to declare us fit to parent Jughead, well, you could imagine I wasn’t going to drop everything and start  _ trusting _ her.” She rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t let Fred take care of the child because of one DUI, thinks that sending him into a lion's den is a suitable living situation...suffice to say? Trusting some busibody from the state? Not something that I planned on doing.” She shook her head. “It was only after Elizabeth...told me, shall we say, that Gladys had refused to take responsibility for her own child that I decided to delve into the mystery and intrigue that surrounded our little ‘call center’. I hardly doubt the Uktena will be overjoyed to hear what she’s been doing with the Serpent name out in Toledo.” Alice sighed. “You were saying? About Jellybean?” 

 

“I don’t want her being involved in this shit,” he said. “She’s my daughter.”

 

“I know,” she said. “What makes you think that she is?”

 

“Don’t you think it’s weird how she goes from hating me to wanting to be my BFF?” FP questioned, and she glanced up at him. “I mean, Al, I was a  _ shit _ father to her. I let Gladys take her across the country and I never did a damn thing to fight her over it. It made sense that she hated me when I went to pick up Jugs. Yeah, it just a bit, but I got it.” FP shrugged his shoulders. “Now she comes home and she’s all hugging me and shit? Calling me Daddy? I don’t want her to be like...manipulated, or anything.” 

 

“What do you expect me to be able to do?” Alice questioned. “Do you seriously want me spying on your ten year old? FP! She’s ten. Even I have standards.” 

 

“No, nothing like that,” he said, though the fact that he didn’t look her in the eyes made Alice suspect that he  _ had _ thought she would be willing to do so. “I don’t know what I want from you,” he admitted. “Thought maybe you had some idea, given how you kept your girls out of it, and everything.” 

 

“Well...all right,” she settled on. “Why didn’t you just  _ tell  _ me these things? I thought you wanted me to hook up with you with your wife in the next room.”

 

FP chuckled. “No, Al, I know you wouldn’t be into that,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want to sleep with me in a camping sleeping bag, regardless of Gladys’ presence or not.” 

 

“Why are you doing that?” 

 

“It had to be done,” he sighed. “Gladys took over the bedroom, and it’s not like that would be fair on either of the kids, you know?”

 

Alice blinked, and she tried to process the turn the conversation had taken. FP seemed worryingly sincere. 

 

“Are you telling me that you are sleeping in a sleeping bag in your  _ own _ trailer, and you called me over here to ensure that I was going to some ridiculous birthday party your estranged wife is throwing you, for no reason but to get some attention on herself and attempt to distract you from whatever in the name of all that is good and holy the woman’s trying to do under your nose? FP, even by your standards, this is unacceptable.”

 

“What else am I supposed to do?” 

 

“Why don’t you ask your friends for help?” Alice stood in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest, and an unamused look on her face. How dare FP stand there telling her that she needed to do things like reach out to people like him and Fred, and then turn around and admit that he had done the  _ exact _ opposite of what he was insisting she do? Sheriff or not, Alice would not stand for this. “Or is that something that I should do, but  _ not _ you? Help me understand, because I certainly don’t.” 

 

“I keep hoping that she’ll leave,” he admitted. “I don’t know why she won’t.” 

 

“Why don’t  _ you _ leave? You’re our Sheriff. Why in God’s name aren’t you living on the Northside? You want my opinion? I’d dump her ass. You don’t want to be associated with her when things go badly, which, my intuition says, they definitely will.” 

 

“You saying that as my friend, Alice? Or as someone who feels right?” 

 

“I’m saying this as someone with common sense, FP. Take it from someone who knows. That aftermath is  _ not _ fun.” 

 

“Where would we even go?” 

 

“You could stay with us,” she said. “We’re friends, and the house is big enough that we’d hardly even interact. If anyone questions you, you can say that you’re offering me protection.” 

 

“You  _ need _ protection, Al?” 

 

“It probably wouldn’t hurt,” she admitted, allowing a moment of vulnerability to escape her wall of emotions, if only for the sake of coercing FP into agreement. “Don’t you want to help a friend?”


End file.
